The historic Mediterrenean-style townhouse at 39 Barrow Street has two very visible facades, both freaking adorable. This king of West Village quaint has pale blue shutters and a partially sunken entrance on Barrow Street, and on Seventh Avenue South there's a pinkish hue with a bright yellow door leading to a walled-in courtyard . Those colors aren't going anywhere, but it's looking like this two-face is going under the knife.
The 2,200-square-foot house was bought by James P. Marden, the son of a pharmacy mogul, for $4.125 million earlier this year. An application for some pretty significant cosmetic changes has been winding its way through the Landmarks Preservation Commission approvals process, and made its most recent appearance this week. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation's excellent LPC-tracking website has the details (some of the plans can be seen in the gallery above):
On the front (Barrow Street) facade, the applicant is proposing to restore the door, stoop and railings using these features at Nos. 49 & 51 Barrow Street as a prototype.A rooftop subtraction? Don't see those every day, but in the preservation-sensitive West Village, no visibility is good visibility. And speaking of, the LPC didn't vote on the proposal because the board had concerns about the non-historic rooftop railing being too visible from the street. That was the only major gripe, so expect the facelift to begin once that minor details is revised.On the rear (Seventh Avenue South) facade, the applicant is proposing to add a railing to the existing second-floor balcony and to change the second-floor center window to a door.
In order to create a roof deck, the proposal involves lowering the existing roof while maintaining the height of the parapet walls on both facades. The deck would have a wire mesh railing that would be recessed 6? from the front of the building (thus the applicant claims it would not be visible from Barrow Street). The roof would also have a raised skylight and a stair bulkhead.
As for the inside of the house, we're into it, up to the 17' ceilings and down to the "Terrazzo stone floor with inlaid Moravian tiles." A pair of old listings are still floating around for gawking: from Corcoran and Avian Village Realty. What could make it even better? All that sweet sweet Oxycontin and Xanax that's probably now stored inside.
· 39 Barrow Street [GVSHP]
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